Council sends business district back to planners

WAYNESBORO, Pa. - The Waynesboro Borough Council decided Wednesday there are too many questions associated with a rezoning request for the downtown, so it sent the matter back to the planning commission.

The planners proposed creating a downtown business district bounded by Grant Street, Gay Street, Alley 1 North and Broad Street. The section of Pa. 16 that serves as Main Street in Waynesboro was included in the zone.

Their proposal said that all new construction in that zone would have to be built directly to the front property line and zero to 5 feet to the side lot lines.

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"I see a possibility of maybe four different ways of reading it," D. Lloyd Reichard II, the borough solicitor, said as he further reviewed the proposal.

The ambiguities concern the side-lot portion of the proposal, and they developed during a public hearing Wednesday.

LeRoy Maxwell Jr. and B.J. Roberts, who have control over the Wayne Building on West Main Street, mentioned the side-lot problems as they discussed tearing down an annex behind their building to create parking.

The "thing you have to decide is whether or not you want the building to extend the full width of the lot in the front and allow it to set back from the side yard behind," Reichard said.

That would create an L-shaped building.

The zero-setback policy was designed to create a smooth, unbroken look downtown. Each building would be in line with its neighbor.

All existing buildings in the zone would be permitted to remain on their current footprints under a grandfather clause, the planners previously said.

"This generally is a good thing to be doing, but I don't think it ought to be done back of the main buildings that front on Main Street," Maxwell said.

The downtown business district was proposed in the middle of the town center zone, which extends from Second Street to North Street. It includes most of the area between Clayton and Fairview avenues.

"It seems there are a lot of different issues here that need to be addressed," said Dick George, council president.

He advised the council that it could send the proposal back to the planners for further review, which council then agreed to do.